Entries from December 2017

Dorothy “Dot” Drury, 86, passed away on Friday, December 29, 2017, surrounded by her family. She was the daughter of the late Capers Wade Drew, Sr. and Marie Massey Drew. She was a graduate of Barwick High School in 1948. After high school, she attended business school in Atlanta, GA then moved to Quincy, Florida where she met her husband ...
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Elections have benefits or consequences, depending on which side of the fence you’re on.
Congress’ passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and President Trump’s signing of it fulfilled one of his main promises on the campaign trail in 2015 and 2016 and gave Republicans a major victory they needed at the end of a turbulent year.
To this point in his presidency, it is Trump’s biggest legislative achievement, in much the same way the Affordable Care Act was for former President Obama.
But with its low favorability numbers among the general public, the new tax law may have just given Democrats a primary item to run on in next year’s midterms and in 2020, just like an initially unpopular ACA gave Republicans ammunition in the last few elections.
Republicans are in large part adopting a similar playbook to the ones the Democrats used to defend their unpopular legislation — you’ll like it more once you see what’s in it.
And while this law may prove more popular in time like Obamacare eventually did, it’s not enough to say I’m cynical of something that got rammed through in seven weeks with very few if any public hearings. I lean more toward the view that it is a betrayal of the American middle class, in service of rich people, including the president and his family, and fat-cat corporations.
Yes, it provides middle-class tax relief early in the plan and the final bill was an “improvement” over earlier versions from the aspect that it preserves smaller, but meaningful, deductions like student loan interest.
Doing some simple, but not exact, calculations, my wife and I stand to see our take-home pay after taxes go up about 4 percent combined. But how much will that really help our situation in the long term?
With the repeal of the individual mandate being included in this plan, that means far less people will be purchasing insurance. But the mandate was there for a reason.
Because of the way our healthcare system is set up, the removal of the mandate will further destabilize the insurance markets and jack the premiums up even higher.
I had to go through the shrinking — no, completely shrunken — local private market to get a (hardly) reasonable rate for my family because the rate quoted for my company was ridiculously astronomical. My biweekly premium would have been 53 percent of my take-home pay. Now I’m most likely going to experience something closer to that anyway in the coming years, to go along with an ever-increasing cost of living.
Excuse me if I don’t get too excited about a 4-percent bump.
Most of these individual provisions that help middle- and working-class Americans are set to expire by the end of 2025. Republican leaders in Congress like House Speaker Paul Ryan have downplayed this while operating under the assumption that future Congresses won’t allow them to expire.
But that would only mean an increase to the $1.5 trillion this legislation is projected to grow our deficits by.
Republicans who support this have little to no credibility from here on when trying to talk about our crippling debt.
How will Trump be able to fulfill another of his other campaign promises to rebuild our country’s infrastructure, which is sure to take a hit with less and less revenue coming in?
The Republicans still insist this will all pay for itself.
How so? By slashing entitlements, which many Republicans don’t seem (publicly) to have as much will to back?
Maybe it’s the economic growth they’re projecting. But there’s little evidence to suggest that this legislation’s corporate-rate cuts (permanent, by the way) will lead to sustainable long-term growth or be a gigantic jobs creator. It’s doubtful that the announcements from a handful of companies about wage increases and extra domestic investments are anything more than short-term public relations grabs that will last past the current news cycle.
In fact, this legislation could, and probably will, expedite our path to another 2008 scenario that many economists of all different political persuasions say is inevitable.
As Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect wrote last week: “The huge corporate tax breaks are not likely to generate jobs because corporations in recent years have used their outsized profits more for stock buybacks (to pump up share values) than for new domestic investment.
“If anything, the tax bill will only exacerbate that imbalance, as corporations literally have more after-tax profits than they know what to do with. With its favoritism for corporations, the bill will likely prolong and intensify what many analysts consider a stock market already dangerously overvalued.”
So yes, this tax overhaul is mostly a sham for the middle and working class who will suffer the most when that bubble bursts.
One of my co-workers proposed in a recent column that we transition to a “trickle up” approach rather than a “trickle down” one and “give massive breaks to the middle class on the backs of the more well-to-do, not the other way around.”
Unfortunately, that isn’t anywhere remotely close to the way Washington works. This bill, like so many others backed by both parties over the years, was shaped by lobbyists, skimmed through or not even read by the legislators (a frequent problem my great-uncle, who was a Congressman for 12 years, said he saw) and filled with kickbacks to campaign donors and the politicians themselves.
According to reporting from the International Business Times, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) slipped into the final bill a provision that stands to enrich more than a dozen GOP senators through their real estate shell companies.
Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee is one of those. He was previously against the tax legislation over deficit concerns and claimed he didn’t know about the special provision when he announced his support for the final bill a few days before the vote. If true, that would be sad given that he obviously didn’t read the bill. But anyone with clear eyes should be able to tell that it’s complete malarkey and an insult to our intelligence.
Furthermore, John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, inserted language into the final bill that pads the pockets of fossil fuel companies, major GOP campaign donors and a handful of Cornyn’s colleagues, including fellow Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
The swamp, the wasteland of greed and corruption, does indeed run deep. And we’re more than likely going to get stuck while they laugh their way to another vacation home, another private jet and maybe a few more rounds of golf.
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Scott Thompson is the editor of the Barrow News-Journal. He can be reached at sthompson@barrownewsjournal.com.

The ole gray mare ain’t what she used to be. And neither is law enforcement. It’s a sad sign of the times.
Over the years, during my time as a law enforcement officer, I had an opportunity to work with some of the best in the business.
In the 70s and 80s, there were some top-notch, professional law enforcement officers at every level. While there were some bad ones, and some really bad, there weren’t so many that they over-shadowed the good ones.
Most of the men and women working for the feds, state and local agencies were real professionals, well trained and dedicated to their tasks.
This is not a slight on the good officers out there today. There are more than a few really good officers dedicated to doing the right thing. Without them, society would fall apart.
But something is wrong from local government to the highest levels of the federal government.
Take the Federal Bureau of Investigation for starters.
Former Director James Comey is an embarrassment. The Justice Department should take him before a federal Grand Jury sooner than later. His ties to the Clinton Foundation and family are well-established. His failure to follow and uphold his oath appears to be beyond question.
Just recently, the Justice Department discovered that FBI agents under Comey played a role in what we are now calling “the Deep State” which is trying to destroy the current presidency.
The U.S. Secret Service (SS) is not without problems, either. A former SS agent says politicians and bureaucrats have destroyed the agency. Reports show that alcoholism has been rampant among the ranks. Another former agent indicated that the department had promoted a number of agents to supervisory levels that weren’t qualified to be managers.
Embarrassing events include White House security breaches, the theft of an agent’s laptop from his vehicle on which floor plans for Trump Tower were stored along with files on the Pope, and agents being caught with prostitutes while out of country on Presidential details.
Another concern is the complacency observed in the agency, pointing a finger toward too many senior agents in management positions that have more than enough time to retire. In our own state, we see the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) under a cloud. There have been few shadows cast over the GBI in the past years. Vernon Keenan, current GBI Director, is a fine person who doesn’t tolerate sloppy work or illegal activities.
Unfortunately, former Special Agent Sandra Putnam’s name is not on the list of honorable stars in Director Keenan’s agency. Putnam, a high ranking GBI Inspector with 23 years as a law enforcement officer, pled guilty to racketeering and violation the oath of a public official two weeks ago and faced charges that could have brought her 20 years in prison.
The former agent pled guilty to charging about $60,000 worth of clothes, electronics and furniture to her state issued credit card over a three-year period by generating false invoices. Believe it or not, she walked free with only probation, provided she repays the state. In addition to no jail time, she is able to keep her state retirement and her certification as a police officer. However, the Peace Officer Standards and Training Council will have final say on the status of her certification.
You have to wonder what hanky panky within the court system kept her out of prison.
I believe Director Keenan was as shocked as others when he heard the sentence.
Last week the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) ran a story regarding the disciplining of 17 Atlanta Public Schools police officers for cheating on a state-administered test. According to the AJC, passing the test allows the officers “…to access a state database of millions of confidential, criminal and driver’s license records.” The matter to date is on the Fulton County District Attorney’s desk but there appears to have been no disciplinary action taken as of yet. If we can’t trust the police, who can we trust?
The old gray mare ain’t what she used be and she’s not talking. I guess she pled “the fifth.”
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Jimmy Terrell is retired from a career in law enforcement in Barrow County and is a Winder city councilman-elect. He can be reached at ejterrell65@gmail.com.

When Georgia legislators passed a bill a few years ago to make fireworks legal, I remember talking to one of the bill’s supporters.
I mentioned to him the large numbers of people who blow off fingers or other parts of their anatomy, or kill themselves by foolishly setting off fireworks.
Did that concern him at all, I asked.
He had this simple reply: “You can’t fix stupid.”
When my friends and associates ask me how the Georgia Public Service Commission can allow construction to continue on the Plant Vogtle nuclear project when it keeps falling farther behind schedule and going more over budget, I offer that same answer. You can’t fix stupid.
Unfortunately for Georgia consumers, the five members of the PSC just may be the dumbest collection of individuals ever elected to public office in this state.
We are talking about people, as the old joke goes, who will never be a threat to win a Nobel Prize in physics.
The idea of letting Georgia Power build two additional reactors at Plant Vogtle was a deluded notion from the start.
All the commissioners had to do was look back at the first two reactors built in the 1970s and 1980s -- they went billions over budget and were completed years behind schedule.
The PSC members either misinterpreted this history or never bothered to read it. When they voted in 2009 to authorize the project, the only commissioner to vote no was Bobby Baker, who tried to warn his colleagues they were making a huge mistake.
“You’re taking a big gamble with Georgia Power’s money, the ratepayers’ money,” Baker said.
“If you want to roll the dice, roll it with your own money. We’re talking about billions of dollars here.”
The other four commissioners -- Stan Wise, Doug Everett, Chuck Eaton, and Lauren “Bubba” McDonald -- laughed off Baker’s warning and voted to give Georgia Power the go-ahead.
It didn’t take long to determine that Baker was correct in his warning. The Vogtle project was originally projected to cost $14 billion and be complete by 2017, but the total cost has now ballooned to more than $25 billion and the reactors won’t be operational until 2021 or 2022 -- unless there are more delays, which is likely.
This boondoggle is a problem not only for customers of Georgia Power but also for those who get their electricity from one of its partners in the project: Oglethorpe Power, MEAG Power, and Dalton Utilities.
Georgia Power now contends that it will have to spend at least $12.2 billion as its share of finishing the project. The PSC staff and the outside experts, however, say the project no longer makes economic sense if it ends up costing ratepayers more than $9 billion.
“If it is any amount above $9 billion, then it ceases being economic and cancellation [of the reactors] is the better option,” said Philip Hayet, one of the consultants who has tracked the economic impact of the project for the PSC.
“It doesn’t make sense, economically, to go forward if the amount exceeds $9 billion,” said Lane Kollen, another economic consultant.
That’s a conclusion already reached by officials in South Carolina, who were building two nuclear reactors identical in design to the ones being constructed at Vogtle.
When the price of those two reactors exceeded $9 billion, South Carolina pulled the plug on that project.
The PSC had the opportunity to make the same decision here and terminate a project that will only cost Georgia consumers billions more in cost overruns. They set a date of Dec. 21 to make the final decision on whether to kill Vogtle or keep it going.
You would think that the commissioners would listen to their own staff analysts and consultants who monitor the Vogtle project.
Their expert advice was to kill the project if it couldn’t be kept under $9 billion.
But as I mentioned earlier, these commissioners aren’t exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer.
When the vote was taken last week, the same four commissioners who voted to start this project in 2009 voted to keep it going. Tim Echols, who replaced Baker on the commission, also voted to let the Vogtle construction proceed.
You can’t fix stupid.
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Tom Crawford is editor of The Georgia Report, an internet news service at gareport.com that reports on state government and politics. He can be reached at tcrawford@gareport.com.

As we continue to mark off the final days of 2017, a new year is now less than a week away.
The past 12 months have been a mixed bag of good, bad and in between.
I imagine it’s that way for most of us.
For me, I learned long ago that the lowest of low times don’t override the best of the good.
Even the past few days have been a test. Someone close to me has been dealing with serious health issues.
As of this writing things are looking better and my anxiety level has decreased, even if only by a little.
The turning of the page into a new year always gives me a sense of hope for better things, from health to finances and everything imaginable. It’s also a time of reflection, not only for the past year but for the things to be thankful for and for things we often take for granted.
“Thankful” lists are a favorite of mine. Some items are serious and some not so serious but with a new year at hand, now is a good time to be thankful for:
•the days when the sky is blue and the sun is shining.
•a text from a friend to see how your day is going.
•classic television game shows.
•the company which values the contributions of its employees rather than viewing them as a faceless number.
•warm days in winter.
•Saturdays in the fall when college football fills the television.
•the time of year when it does not get dark at 5:30 in the afternoon.
•those who still understand the lost art of sending a written thank-you note.
•good neighbors.
•mornings when I don’t have to get up early.
•the new television series, however rare, that is actually worth watching.
•political campaign upsets, which are as much fun to watch as athletic upsets.
•the elected official who actually carries through on a campaign promise or two.
•the time when radio stations had an actual person in the studio whenever you tuned in.
•newspapers that actually provide local news and sports.
•the arrival of colorful birds in all shapes and varieties after leaving feed for them on a cold day.
•those who work to rescue abused and abandoned animals.
•anyone who has worn a uniform representing our country.
•those of you who take the time to let me know you read these musings from time to time.
Happy New Year.
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Winder resident Chris Bridges is former editor of the Barrow News-Journal. He welcomes comments about this column at pchrisbridges@gmail.com.

A memorial service for Jean Healan Thomason will be held on Saturday, January 13, 2018, at 2 p.m. CST, at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bowling Green, 2033 Nashville Road, Bowling Green, KY 42101.

ATHENS - Rev. Dale Lee Clark, 59, entered fully into the presence of his Lord and Savior in the early hours of Wednesday, December 27, 2017, at the Kindred Hospice at Piedmont Regional Hospital in Athens, Ga. He had a short recurrence of melanoma, a battle he fought for many years. Dale was born on October 12, 1958, the son of Hubert Lee Clark ...
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Winder-Barrow High School football standout Logan Cash and coach Heath Webb have been named Player and Coach of the Year by Mainstreet Newspapers. The company, which includes the Barrow News-Journal and covers teams in Barrow, Jackson, Banks and Madison counties, released its all-area team this week. Cash, a 6-foot-3, 252-pound junior defensive ...
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After his team lost another tough game to Baldwin on Dec. 20 — their fourth loss this year by two points or fewer — Apalachee boys basketball coach Spencer Bernstein told his team not to get discouraged, that things would start to go their way. The Wildcats responded big-time Dec. 21, overcoming an early deficit and rolling to an 84-65 ...
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